Lady M. W. Montague.
Spence says of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, that she is one of the most shining characters in the world; but she is like a comet, she is all irregularity, and always wandering: the most wise, most imprudent, loveliest, most disagreeable, best natured, cruelest woman in the world.
Of herself she writes, “I thank God I still retain my taste for the gay part of reading. Wise people may think it trifling, but it serves to sweeten life to me, and is at least better than the generality of conversation.” I know by experience how far the love of reading is capable of softening the cruelest accidents of life: even the happiest cannot be passed without many weary hours, and there is no remedy so easy as books, which if they do not give cheerfulness, at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind.
Gardening is certainly the next amusement to reading.
Inscrutable Providence.
The mild air gives birth to pestilence, and the whirlwind, though it uproots trees, destroys the devouring locust. God blesses in a blow, and punishes in a gift. To hasten the ripening of the fig, we pierce it; and what so sweet as the wounded pulp?
The Mother of the Cagot.
Strange but beautiful is the strength of maternal affection. This object to all others so hideous—that for earth to hide his deformity, for death to close upon his afflictions, seems a boon to be prayed for, a mercy to be acknowledged with thankfulness—in the eyes of his mother is one of hope and of interest as great as the most perfect. She weeps not that he was born, but that he dies; weeps as passionately as the parent who loses the most beautiful, the most gifted offspring: perhaps more so than if he had been beautiful and gifted, for then he would not have been exclusively dependant on her love and care. Is it not right there should be a source in the desert as well as in the valley? Blessed is the illusion the mother’s heart lends to her eyes! yet alas! for the “Cagot,” the earth brings forth healing herbs in vain, the Church withholds her rites in vain. Their degradation, their destitution is appalling.